Heads have rolled at the BBC over phone-in scandals and rigged competitions. The most recent to be exposed is an online poll to name the Blue Peter cat. GMTV is also expected to receive a record £2.7 million fine next week over its premium-rate telephone lines. Even cutaway interview shots and other editing tricks are under scrutiny. So can we trust anything on television?

How did the Blue Peter cat cause so much trouble?
In January last year viewers were asked to “name the new kitten” when the show’s veteran cat, Smudge, was retired. The most popular name chosen from 40,000 entries was Cookie. But producers decided that “it would be better to choose Socks, as they felt this suited the kitten better”.

What’s wrong with Cookie?
Although deriving from the Dutch for “little cake”, Cookie may have been seen as too American or an endorsement of sugary foods. Insiders say that a late surge for Cookie alerted producers to possible multiple voting.

Is Blue Peter a serial offender?
The children’s show received a £50,000 fine after a production assistant persuaded a member of the public to pose as the competition winner. Richard Marson, the Blue Peter editor during both scandals, stepped down. Mark Thompson, the BBC Director-General, said that letting down the children who watched the show and trusted it implicitly was a “truly terrible idea”.

Can Blue Peter be trusted with animals?
The programme’s first animal cover-up occurred in 1962 when Petra, a mongrel puppy, died two days after making her debut. Biddy Baxter, the producer, introduced a ringer so as not to upset children. The truth was not disclosed for 30 years. A tortoise called Fred was discovered to be female years after the animal’s arrival in 1963. An apology was eventually presented to viewers and the letter “a” hastily added to the name on Fred’s shell.

Does this add up to a “crisis of trust” at the BBC?
The corporation is already under investigation for manipulating footage of the Queen. The head of programmes at Radio 6 Music resigned after faked phone-in competitions came to light on three shows. Fictional winners were named in the Children in Need and Comic Relief competitions. Mr Thompson, however, has found “no evidence that there is a widespread culture of deception”.

But how do other channels compare?
The BBC takes no profit from phone-in votes and competitions. Viewers have found themselves at the mercy of commercial operators for years. The managing director of GMTV resigned after admitting that premium-rate competition shortlists were regularly finalised before lines closed. Ofcom fined Channel 4’s Richard & Judy £150,000 for a similar offence. Five was fined £300,000 for faking winners on its Brainteaser quiz show. ITV has dropped its quiz TV channel ITV Play and is awaiting a report into phone voting.

How did all this begin?
Questions were raised last year over late night call-in quizzes, a new boom industry. A Commons investigation found that premium-rate callers were being kept waiting deliberately while some questions were obtuse by design. Accusations of deception in other competitions followed, as did claims of footage manipulated to fool viewers.

Can television news and documentaries be trusted?
The false claim that an ITV documentary by the respected film-maker Paul Watson showed an Alzheimer’s sufferer at the moment of his death prompted outrage and led to an internal investigation. Editing techniques, common within television, are under scrutiny. Alan Yentob is shown “nodding” in apparent response to interviewees on his arts show Imagine on BBC One – even when he was not present and did not conduct the interviews. Mr Thompson has banned Yentob’s “noddy” shots, as has Five News, arguing that viewers know they are artificial.

Is smart editing an accepted technique?
Mr Thompson says: “To me there is a world of difference between deliberate, material deception and reasonable production technique. The idea that simultaneously recording two editions of Songs of Praise on the same day amounts to a sinister plot to defraud the nation is madness.”

What happens next?
Mr Thompson says: “We believe we’ve got to the bottom of the problems – and need to concentrate now on making sure they never happen again.” Staff will undergo a training programme teaching them that honesty is more important than keeping the show on the road. Peter Fincham, the BBC One Controller, may still lose his job over the footage misrepresenting the Queen. ITV will publish a report by Deloitte into its phone voting operations that could include series such as The X Factor.

Is there any hope of restoring the viewers’ faith?
Confected scenes of Gordon Ramsay catching a sea bass that was actually caught by a spearfishing expert will disappear. The BBC mania for phone-ins and “interactivity” will subside. Michael Grade, ITV’s chairman, has promised that viewers would be told if something went wrong on a live show. The late-night call-in industry has almost collapsed. Television will undergo a period of hairshirt puritanism before the pressure for ratings and income reasserts itself again.

How big is this TV scandal?
The scales first fell from viewers’ eyes in 1958 when a scam in the US show Twenty-One was revealed. Popular contestants were fed answers at the behest of sponsors. The scam was turned into the hit film Quiz Show, which Michael Grade screened for executives when he ran Channel 4. Charles Ingram, the “coughing” major, employed a more inventive technique, using an accomplice to win Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in 2001. Ingram was convicted of deception but maintains his innocence.

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